Automated or semi-automated telephony devices or servers are commonly used in telemarketing and other types of calling campaigns to greatly speed up contact delivery, completion and performance, and increase agent productivity. Examples of semi-automated and automated telephony devices or servers include automated or pre-view dialers and predictive dialers. Automated pre-view dialers pop the number to be contacted in front of the agent before the call is made and the agent then makes the calls, usually by hitting or not hitting a key. In contrast, predictive dialers, without prior agent input, contact numbers loaded from a database and hook the agent to the contacted party when the call is answered
Dialers “throw” calls to agents at pre-set speeds and set call length, agent breathing space between calls, and the maximum permissible time for an agent to handle a call. In normal operation, dialers check which telephone lines are free and which agents are free. In a typical predictive dialer, when the outgoing contact is placed a contact classifier is assigned to the contact to monitor the contact. When the contact is answered, the contact classifier determines whether a person (i.e., a live party) or something other than the person (e.g., a telephone answering machine, a busy signal, or an operator intercept) has answered the contact. If the contact classifier determines that a live party has answered the contact, control of the contact is switched immediately over to a live agent at the contact center who handles the remainder of the contact. If the contact classifier determines that the contact was not answered by a live party, the contact is terminated or alternative action is taken.
Each year, telemarketing activities are encountering more operational obstacles. Due to the intrusiveness of telemarketing activities into the privacy of the contacted parties, many governments not only closely regulate the hours during which telemarketing calls can be made and require contacted parties to be removed from telemarketing lists at the request of the contacted party but also maintain themselves or require telemarketing firms to maintain Do Not Call or DNC lists. Telemarketers must scrub their calling lists against DNC lists. Many telemarketers, however, only scrub the calling list against the DNC list at the beginning of the campaign or when the list is initially generated and therefore fail to take into account changes to the DNC list during the campaign. The general public itself is becoming less tolerant of telemarketing activities, which equates into a lower per-call success rate for telemarketing operators. Many people do not wish to receive marketing calls or only wish to receive calls on certain topics and at particular times or at particular numbers. Current practice, however, is to treat individuals as a commodity to be exploited and flood large ranges of telephone numbers with calls, resulting in the company leaving a poor impression with callees, particularly those who do not wish to receive the calls. This practice can cause an invaluable loss of goodwill in the minds of consumers. To battle the onslaught of telemarketing calls, many people have resorted to screening incoming calls manually using caller id and/or an answering machine. This practice can cause personal calls to go unanswered, leading to frustration in interpersonal relationships. Existing products can make a callback at a time specified by the party being contacted (prior to the campaign starting), or, during the campaign, in accordance with predetermined globally applied rules (for all parties) in the event of a call attempt on busy, no answer, detection of fax, etc. In the latter case, the callback is not done in accordance with the preferences of the party being contacted.